[splat-uhs-FEER-ik] adj. The kind of rebound that doesn't go exactly as planned.

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Sunday, November 25, 2012

The rest of the story...in pieces.

A couple days ago I posted an excerpt from a chapter of the larger project I'm working on. Based on the feedback that generated, I'm bringing you the rest of the chapter in three pieces. Trilogies sell, baby. I'm ripping a page out of the Star Wars handbook and presenting the series out of order. What follows is the prequel to the piece I published first, in which our hero grappled with a plumbing problem that reminded her of the time her father cat-sat and got his first up close and personal experience with hairballs. Without further ado....

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“Respect the water,” our parents
would remind us every year during our annual family vacation at the Outer Banks. Back then I assumed they were referring to
the Atlantic Ocean and its powerful waves. Only as a first-time homeowner did I
understand they were making a broader statement. Not only should I respect the tides that ran
along the beaches but also the stuff that ran through the pipes of my
house. The second kind of water didn’t land
with a dramatic crash every few seconds like the Atlantic did, but I came to
understand that it could still pack a pretty good wallop.

My first lesson in water respect
as an adult came in March of 2003, a day before the party I had volunteered to
host for a friend who was moving to the other Washington. More than fifty guests had RSVP’d “yes,” and I
had planned for that. I had not,
however, planned for a plumbing mutiny.

Rebel activity exhibits certain
common characteristics, such as showing signs of discord before launching the actual coup. Those signs might manifest in a benign form, like a chant-filled
demonstration, or something more ominous, like explosives. My plumbing started hinting at its nonconformist tendencies shortly
after I moved in. The bathtub drained
slowly sometimes, and on more than one occasion it took the commode a couple
tries to perform its assigned role. As
warnings went these were as menacing as a two-person sit-in on a park bench in front of Mayberry City Hall. I paid them no heed. The plumbing resented not being taken
seriously and telegraphed its evil intent as I was getting ready for work that
Friday.

Just before leaving, I popped
into the bathroom in case my daily walk and metro trip took longer than
expected. When I flushed, the toilet
obliged in sound only. Subsequent
attempts failed to do anything other than raise the water level in the
bowl. It didn’t take long for me to
recognize that I couldn’t quell this conflict on my own. I picked up the phone
and called for reinforcements.

“Dad?”

“Hello, dolly!” he said. His use of a childhood term of endearment fit the
moment better than he knew. I understood
plumbing as well as your average five year-old.
I explained the problem and told him I didn’t have time to work on
it. I waited for him to volunteer to
“come over and take a look.” Not that
having my father “take a look” would have done much good in a plumbing crisis. His trademark, all-purpose “jiggle the
handle” solution came up short sometimes, and I knew this was one of them. I’d already tried it.

Instead of offering to come over,
he surprised me and said, “Ooh, can’t help you there, honey. That one’s way
above my paygrade. You’re going to have to call Robert.” My parents had stumbled on to Robert a few
years earlier. They called their usual
guy when their washer died, only to learn that his death had preceded the
appliance’s. His widow referred them to
Robert, a plumbing and appliance savant.

Robert was short and wiry, unlike
his hair, which was long and sleek. He tended to chat while he worked and covered
subjects you’d expect at a dinner party but not during an appliance repair
session. While he diagnosed an ailing
apparatus he might talk about an excellent novel he just read, a favorite new
wine, or his affection for holiday-themed dish towels. My parents had attempted to classify him and
came up with: part Rhodes Scholar, part Redneck.

They forgot “empathetic
listener.” When I placed the distress
call that Friday morning, Robert said he’d be panicked if he were in my shoes. Few homeowners would relish the prospect of a
showdown between an angry toilet and fifty party guests. He rearranged his schedule and agreed to
come over while I was at work. He phoned
me a few hours later with the good news that he’d cleared the blockage in the
master bathroom. The bad news? While he
was there he turned on all the faucets and both showers, and he flushed the
other toilet. All of them backed up.

“What does that mean?” I asked.
It sounded like the house equivalent of major organ failure. I hoped dialysis
was available for dwellings.

“Something’s blocking the main
drain,” he said. The term “main drain”
meant nothing to me. I didn’t know what or where it was. My mind conjured up the stuff of legend,
specifically the alligators rumored to lurk in the bowels of New York’s subway
system. Robert must have interpreted my silence as
confusion, because he made another attempt in the vernacular. “You gotta get your pipes snaked,” he said.

I still
didn’t know exactly what he meant but any procedure described in that kind of
language was bound to be invasive and unpleasant.

---------------

Tune in tomorrow for Part II, which is really Part III, because this was Part I and, well, you get the picture.

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About Me

I turned 40 in June of 2011. Shortly thereafter I realized I needed to end my 10-month marriage. Making this decision was difficult --you don't exactly brag about being married a Kardashian length of time-- but the mechanics of executing this huge fresh start (and a whole series of related little ones) proved even more daunting. My attempts to bounce back --both recent and not--haven't always ricocheted off the proverbial wall with the gusto I envisioned. Sometimes they hit it with a resounding "splat" and slide down before landing in a heap on the dirt. This blog chronicles adventures in splats --largely mine but guest splatters will be featured as well--with the hope that the posts will evoke laughter, provoke the occasional thought, and prove that even the messiest ones usually work out just fine. Eventually.

Have You Ever Splat-ted? Tell me about it!

Have a good "splat" story to share? Email me at splatospheric@gmail.com. (Names and other incriminating details can be changed to protect the splatted, of course!) I'd like to write about other people's adventures as well as my own. While I'm vain enough to have started a blog, I have just enough self awareness to know that not everyone will find me as interesting as I do. There's simply no accounting for taste.